May 13, 2001 Romans 12:9-10
Agape is not superficial. It is shown by hating evil and binding yourself to the good, by tenderly loving each other with a brotherly love.
Richie Cunningham had been watching her walk by his house for days. Every day a certain neighbor gal walked by, the more he noticed her long dark hair - her gentle smile - her soft features - they were all things that beckoned his heart to go beyond the living room window and meet this girl of his affections - he was “in love”. After days and seeming months of expectation, he finally decided to try and break the barrier - to tell the girl how he felt. So one afternoon he planned it just right. At 3:15, he went out and started drawing his feelings on the sidewalk. That way, when she walked by at 3:30, he wouldn’t have to tell her to her face. He thought, “What would be cute? What would be an indirect way of showing her my feelings?” Finally, he figured it out. He would draw out an eye, a heart, and then a female sheep - a ewe. His heart seemed to be jumping through his chest as this specimen of beauty walked by. She stopped, looked, and said, “oh, you love sheep, that’s nice”. She didn’t get the meaning of the message he was trying to convey.
Today is Mother’s Day. Most people, on this day, find some way to express a special appreciation to their mothers and tell them they love them. Some express this with flowers. Some with email. Some with a dinner. There are a variety of ways to tell someone - “I love you.”
In a similar way, God talks about love in His book. It’s interesting to hear the many religions to talk about the love of God. Some interpret it to mean acceptance. Others interpret it to mean a feeling that God has toward us. Just as Richie’s message of love was misinterpreted, so is God’s message of love. What does it mean? Today we will look at that word, and
Learn the True Language of Love
I. By knowing what it is
The Greek Bible has a variety of words for love. There’s eros - which is the love of attraction - the more sexual kind of love. There’s storge - the family love that a child has for his mom or dad. There’s fileo - a friendship kind of love. There’s a variety of examples of “love” in the Bible - some are good - some are bad.
One example of bad “love” is the story of Amnon. He fell in “love” with Tamar, the sister of Absalom. He was so in love that he became sick. Out of this intense “love” he then proceeded to rape his half sister. Then 1 Samuel says that Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. A strange kind of love indeed. It is similar to the love of the Pharisees - Jesus said, they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ It is a love that is driven by selfishness - what it can do or does for me - how it makes me feel.
All of us are familiar with this kind of love. It’s that kind of love that drives weak young men to tell girls they are attracted to, “I love you! If you really loved me, you’d have sex with me tonight.” It’s that kind of love that makes young women blind to the faults of their boyfriend. Sure, he’s not a Christian. Sure, he’s got a drinking problem. Sure he cheats on me. But he says he loves me, and I LOVE him. That kind of love drives children to tell their parents, “I hate you!”, when they don’t give them what they want. It’s that kind of love that is driving ½ of married couples to say, “you know what, you just don’t make me feel good anymore. We don’t have that same old spark. I don’t love you anymore.” He’ll excuse his love with, “She doesn’t work. She doesn’t clean.” And she’ll say, “He doesn’t spend any time with me. He doesn’t talk with me anymore. ” Even dogs have more devotion than that. It’s a pathetic love - based purely on emotions - the devil’s love.
This is even the kind of love we often show toward God. We love God for what he does for us. We love God because He gives us health. We love God because he sent His Son Jesus to die for us. We love God because He created us. It is based on what God GIVES us. But once things get a little ugly - God takes our health, we get a little irritated. Once he takes our income, we start to flare our nostrils. We think, “God, what do you think you’re doing! Don’t you LOVE me?”
You see, anyone can love someone for a day or a night. It’s easy to “love” someone as long as they look good - when you don’t have to live with them - when they’re friendly with you and give you nice cars and whisper how cute you are in your ear. But the godly kind of love that Paul is talking about today is agape love. He explains what this agape love is - the NIV says, “it must be sincere.” Not a word we usually associate with love. “I sincerely love you” doesn’t quite sound right. What it literally means is “not hypocritical.” 1 Peter describes what kind of love this is in 1 Peter 1:22 when he says, Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers. This kind of love is a kind that seems to come with time - through testing. It came to the Christians Peter was writing to after they OBEYED the truth. God had called them to hold onto his Word even through persecutions - and they remained faithful through the trials - PROVING that their love was not hypocritical. That’s the kind of love that God wants us to have.
This is the kind of love that God has. How do we know? When God created man, He had good reason to LOVE Adam and Eve. They were perfect. They were serving him willingly. They listened to Him. They loved Him. But the AGAPE love was displayed, after Adam and Eve decided that they didn’t want to love God anymore. For what did God do? He said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.” God determined that He would help mankind out anyway - by sending a Savior - even though they deserved to burn forever in hell.
That’s what AGAPE truly is - an unconditional determination that says - “no matter who you are - I’m want to do what’s best for you - I want to stick with you.” It’s not a feeling. It’s an attitude - that will try to stick with someone through the thick and the thin. The sad thing today is that a majority of Americans have no clue as to what that kind of dedicated love is all about. When fifty percent of our parents are getting divorced, we’re not seeing it. When we see the ideal love on TV, we’re told that true love is having sex after one night of drinking and then moving on with your life. And so they only know how to love how they’ve experienced it and seen it in their lives. It’s not God’s kind of love. It’s the devil’s.
The advantage we have as Christians - is that we know what love is - because we’ve experienced it! We have not loved God with an unconditional love. We’ve complained to him when we haven’t had good health. We’ve walked away from him when we weren’t given the answer we wanted to our prayers. But God loved us anyway. He stuck with us through our rebellious years. With an agape love He kept working on our hearts. We know what it means to have someone who loves us unconditionally - because God does! What an advantage for us! We haven’t bought into the devil’s lie that love is all about how I feel - or what someone can give to me. God’s kind of love is based on an attitude - we love because he first loved us!
Therefore, when we do face problems in our marriage, we won’t give up so easily. We will be determined to try and work things out. When our children rebel against us, and complain that we are too oppressive, we won’t just stop giving them any responsibility. When our spouses go through mid-life crises we’ll be determined to be there for them. Since we know how God loves us, His love overflows into the way that we deal with others PATIENTLY and CONSISTENTLY. We have an attitude that says, “I’m going to do MY best to stick with it - to practice an AGAPE love.”
II. By doing what it does
Maybe you heard about the guy who fell in love with an opera singer. He hardly knew her, since his only view of the singer was through binoculars - from the third balcony. He was convinced he could live “happily ever after” married to a voice like that. He scarcely noticed that she was considerably older than he. Nor did he care that she walked with a limp. Her mezzo-soprano voice would take them through whatever might come. After a whirlwind romance and a hurry-up ceremony, they were off for their honeymoon.
She began to prepare for their first night together. As he watched, his chin dropped to his chest. She plucked out her glass eye and plopped it into a container on the night-stand. She pulled off her wig, ripped off her false eyelashes, yanked out her dentures, unstrapped her artificial leg, and smiled at him as she slipped off her glasses that hid her hearing aid. Stunned and horrified, he gasped, “For goodness sake, woman, sing, sing, SING!” (Swindoll - Strike the Original Match 68)
It was easy for the man to think and say that her voice would take them through whatever might come. But he didn’t realize what he was getting into. It’s easy to say, “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Words come easy. Any of you who work under a difficult boss, with a spouse, or with children - know how difficult the actions are to follow through on. That’s what Paul was trying to illustrate with the next verse. Agape love doesn’t stop with an attitude. It CONTINUES with ACTION - sometimes DIFFICULT action.
That’s what love is all about. You see, many interpret God’s love to be a wishy washy who cares about sin attitude. Agape love doesn’t just let people do what they want. It doesn’t just express happy feelings. It doesn’t just say, “we care” - and then do nothing. It cares enough to DO something about the people it cares for. That’s what Paul talks about when he says that love - Hates what is evil; clings to what is good. It is devoted to one another in brotherly love. Notice that Paul says - love hates evil. It clings to what is good. It shows DEVOTION!
Think about God displayed that love for Adam and Eve even AFTER they had sinned. Do you think God was smiling and happy after his prize creatures told him, “we don’t like the way you treat us?” No way. God says very clear in Psalm 5: “I hate all who do wrong!” God was not happy. But in love - He did something. Earlier in this letter, Paul laid it out in Romans 5:6-11 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is what agape love is all about. It’s also about ACTION. God did not by accept us for who we were. No. A HOLY God cannot just ACCEPT sin. Instead, in LOVE , He decided to fix who we were. Jesus decided to become one of our brothers. Jesus - the holy God - had to subject himself to a sinful woman’s womb for nine months. He had to be born in a cow stall. He had to put his hands on filthy sinners - let the devil tempt him. He had to allow rebellious unbelievers nail him to a tree. On that tree he had to be bathed in the sins of the world. By sending Christ to cling to what was good - to live a perfect life in our place, he changed our status from filthy sinners to holy saints. When Jesus became our brother and allowed His human flesh to be crucified on the cross - He changed our status from people DESERVING God’s wrath to people who RECEIVED God’s wrath. True love was shown in the ACTIONS He took to remedy the problem.
God wants us to have this kind of love! Is this a difficult thing? Of course it is! Is it impossible? Yes! Let me say it again - yes! Even if you do stick with your marriage - how many of you do it out of love? Even if you do care for your kids, how many of you really do it out of tender devotion for your kids? When you wake up in the middle of the night, most don’t think - “oh, my dear and tender baby - I see that you are in need of a diaper change! What can I do to help?” It just doesn’t happen. That’s why we needed Christ to live that life of love in our place. That’s what salvation is all about.
But the point of Paul is that we know what this love is about. We’ve seen it and we’ve experienced it through Christ. The Holy Spirit has opened our hearts and minds to this truth. So the fact of the matter is that we no longer have to buy into the devil’s lie when he whispers in our ears - “that’s just the way I am. I can’t help it that I have a bad temper. I can’t help it that I worry. I’m just high strung.” No. Paul said, “the love of Christ COMPELS us.” It doesn’t keep us where we are. It propels us forward - enables us to start doing what our love for God wants to do.
Take for instance Joseph. When Potiphar’s wife wanted to sleep with him, do you not think that he was human? He must have had a part of him that said, “why not? I’m sure she won’t say anything!” He could have reasoned, “God hasn’t done anything for me but put me in slavery! Who cares what he thinks!” But what did he say? How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. His love for God was repulsed by the evil - and would only cling to what was good. Even though she kept calling to him, he was able to say “no.” Was it a special fortitude that he had? Not at all. Philippians 2:13 says it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. It was the Holy Spirit living in him! Even though he was still sinful - he was enabled to say no to his sinful nature and cling to what was good.
There will come a time in your life - maybe soon - maybe now - where your rose colored glasses become completely clear. You’ll see your wife without her makeup. She may start gaining a few pounds. Your husband will go through his mid-life crisis. You’ll get a different boss. Your parents will be moody. The promises you made - the commandments you wanted to follow - the contracts you signed - will not seem so easy to follow through on. It’s at that time that you need to open the gospel and say, “sing to me Holy Spirit! Fill me with your love! For without your love and compassion, I won’t be able to show any more love!” Through his Word - the Holy Spirit will give you agape. It may take time, but trust Him to do it. He can give you the fortitude not only to have the right attitude of love - but to follow through with the right actions of love.
There are many ways to say “I love you.” Most of you had mothers who showed you their love by feeding you, clothing you, changing your diapers, and raising you. Today, you may have returned that love by sending them a card or calling them and telling them how much you appreciated them.
Today we learned what God means when He says, “I love you.” We know what His language of love is. Appreciate what that means. He doesn’t just have mushy feelings for you. He has a great determination to take care of you and help you. He proved it to us by sending Christ. Appreciate that love, and reflect it in the way you treat the people in your life. Amen.
